The Tribune

IT’S International Women’s Day and the global theme for the day is “Embrace Equity”. The International Women’s Day website says this theme was selected to get people to talk about why equality opportunities is not enough.

Equality Bahamas launched its CEDAW (Convention) Speaker Series - which brings experts, mostly from the CEDAW Committee, each month to talk about the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, one Article at a time - in April 2022.

In the first session, Swiss human rights lawyer and former CEDAW Committee member Patricia Schulz presented on Article 1 and 2. These Articles provide a definition for “discrimination” and require policy to eliminate discrimination against women, addressing seven specific areas, respectively.

The six areas are gender equality in national constitutions, adoption of legislation to prohibit discrimination against women, legal protection of women’s rights, refrain from discrimination against women in any practice, appropriate measures to elimination discrimination by any person or entity, appropriate measures to modify or abolish discriminatory law, and repeal of penal provisions that discriminate against women.

Schulz noted that discrimination is not always intentional, but the effect matters. Most of the gender-based discrimination that we talk about in The Bahamas, however, are intentional.

It was intentional to put “who is not his spouse” in the definition of rape in the Sexual Offences Act. It was intentional to prevent women from passing on citizenship to their children and to their spouses in the same way that men can do. There have been deliberate actions and inaction that result in gender equality.

In the same session, Schulz pointed out that ending discrimination is not just about presenting equal opportunities. It is really about equality of results or outcomes. It is not enough to say, for example, that anyone can present themselves as a candidate to become a Member of Parliament. We have to consider that a candidate put forward by a political party is more likely to be elected, and if the political parties are patriarchal and misogynistic, women do not have the same chance as men.

If a deposit is required and we know there is a gender wage gap, women are less likely to be able to spare that money. The goal is to have equality in the results, and that means we have to make adjustments to ensure that there is access to the opportunity.

That may mean subsidising the deposit for women who present themselves as candidates. It may mean requiring political parties to have a proportion of their candidate rosters be women. The opportunity itself does not get us to equality as the opportunity is not equally accessible by women and men.

There are two approaches, Schulz pointed out, to achieving gender equality. The first is formal equality in which the law treats women and men the same. The second is substantive equality in which the situation of women and men will be the same in practice.

This is an acknowledgement that changing the law does not always result in equality in practice. There is often more work to be done.

One of the examples Schulz offered was the use of special measures, whether temporary or long-term, to change the conditions and conditioning of society so that equality can be become a reality. One of the most common special measures the political quota.

This spurs an immediate change in the way candidates are selected, and it helps people to see women as leaders and become accustomed to see women in positions of leadership, resulting in greater willingness to vote for women rather than refusing to consider them solely because of the idea that only men lead.

Achieving gender equality requires a focus on equity. This is the meaning of the theme for today. People often do not like it when they see actions being taken for equity. They often misunderstand it, seeing it as unfair or providing an advantage instead of what it really is — giving women the same opportunity as men who have had the advantage for a long time.

The move toward gender equality will continue to cause discomfort as it disrupts systems of patriarchy and capitalism among others.

That discomfort is nothing compared to the discrimination, violence, and injustice women face every day. We have to do what we have to do, and we have to be more resolute, and more swift.

International Women’s Day 2023 March and Expo

The annual International Women’s Day March and Expo was hosted by Equality Bahamas on Saturday, March 4. The march came after more than 12 hours of sign-making and T-shirt printing at Poinciana Paper Press.

Founding director Sonia Farmer and screenprinting instructor Margot Bethel helped volunteers, march participants, and other community members to go through the steps of finding or creating a design, tracing it, cutting it into a stencil, placing the pieces on a screen, adding ink, and transferring the ink to the material.

Most participants were completely new to the process and, once they started, did not want to stop. Most people came with the intention of making one or two signs or spending an hour or two, but ended up staying to keep creating, share jokes, and enjoy each other’s company.

While there, I thought about the importance of community and what it means to truly build and sustain it.

In the Press, people felt welcome. They felt safe enough to push past fears of trying something new, and have people - most of whom were strangers - celebrate when they succeeded, and everything was a success. Even the mistakes were happy, quickly turned into something else. Nothing can replace community. There is no substitute for support and the feeling of belonging.

Equality Bahamas was fortunate to be welcomed into Poinciana Paper Press, and to be able to welcome others to be a part of the creative process.

One person made a design, another person added a word or two, someone else decided to add a little more, and brilliant signs and shirts came from this collaboration. One of the most fascinating things about the process was that the person who started the design did not have to be there to build on it and create something that made everyone present cheer and take photos and videos of the result. This is what our advocacy needs to be like.

We need to have spaces to welcome people. We need to know that, no matter how we go about our work, we are all committed to the same outcome. When someone is tired or leaves, another person needs to be able to pick it up. We have to be able to celebrate our small wins.

We have to cheer each other on. We have to own our strengths, be willing to try something new, and to recognize when someone else’s idea or strength can make ours even better or stronger.

There have to be people who understand how it all started and can tell the story of how we got to the place we’re in now. If you look at the signs and shirts and shirts we made, you would not know how they came to be unless you were there. There were numerous people coming in and out of those doors, each sharing in a part of the process and, importantly, trusting the people they left to keep going.

On Saturday, we were all reunited with our shirts and signs. Some of us were surprised by what had been added and some of us watched other people’s reactions. Everyone was thrilled.

We put on our shirts, we took our signs, and we marched with joy that was only matched by our fierceness as we called for women’s human rights to be upheld, for marital rape to be criminalized, for climate justice to be understood as gender justice, and for bodily autonomy for all.

As the march ended, the expo opened and we returned to our community, in poetry and zine-making workshops, in therapy sessions, in bush medicine tutorials, and in dance.

This is a part of our vision - sharing space, sharing ideas, sharing joy. This is our feminist future in the making.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1 Support the #Strike5ive campaign to criminalise marital rape.

It calls for “who is not his spouse” to be removed from the definition of rape in Section 3 of the Sexual Offences Act. It also calls for a statutory definition of consent and a clause of marital non-immunity to ensure that an offender cannot use marriage to the survivor or victim as a defense. It is clear that there must be no temporal limitation and the consent of the Attorney General must not be required for prosecution (as these were included in the 2018 amendment bill which was rejected). Marital rape needs to be criminalized because all forms of violence are wrong and there is no excuse for rape. There is no need for debate, and there are not two sides. The truth is that women have human rights, and that means women must be protected from violence, including sexual violence, regardless of marital status.

2 Join Feminist Book Club with Equality Bahamas and Poinciana Paper Press.

The next meeting is on Thursday, March 23, at 6pm. Join in person at Poinciana Paper Press, 12 Parkgate Road (between Kemp and Village Roads) or online via Zoom. Either way, register at tiny.cc/fbc2023 to receive more information. The book for March is Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux. In April, the club will read Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin.